To The Grave
by Grimm Sister
Summary: Everyone has secrets.  These are the ones they took with them
1. James Potter

James Potter

1. I never really thought that I had a chance with Lily. As horrifying as it was, what she had with Snape was just too fucking strong. Even after the whole O.W.L. affair I thought they would somehow end up together in the end.

2. That time Sirius called me "Reg" I heard but didn't say anything. It wasn't out of respect for him or insensitivity – except in so much as I just didn't know what to say. I always liked to pretend with him that Regulus had never meant all that much.

3. The same thing with the time I walked in on Sirius crying in the bathroom after he first showed us his Animagus form – the same black dog of his family's crest. Like I say before, he and I liked to pretend his family had never mattered to him.

4. I wasn't given the Invisibility Cloak on my eleventh birthday. I stole it from my father's closet. I let the house elves take the rap for it.

5. Lily always got mad when I brushed off her problems with Petunia. Of course her sister was just jealous of her. Everyone was jealous of her. Even I was jealous of her, she didn't have to try so very hard to be brilliant all the time.

6. Using Peter Pettigrew for Secret Keeper was Sirius's idea. I had my doubts. Not about his faithfulness, just his ability to pull it off. It's easy to forget he was always the best at keeping our secrets in school.

7. Deep down, I think I wanted it to be Harry and not Neville Longbottom. I always had this insane competitive thing with Frank, and, well, we're all idiots about how important our children will be.

8. I was actually kind of relieved when Sirius flubbed his Quidditch try-outs. He would have been a nightmare to coach, and Peter always got so upset when he didn't have one of us to hang around with. Plus Sirius would have been an absolute wreck playing against his brother. He didn't need a Confundus charm, just Regulus's presence.

9. It's very sweet and fitting that Lily's a doe and I'm a stag, but somehow it doesn't feel as intimate as the fact that Snape's Patronus matches hers completely. I hate that while I might "complete" Lily, as she says, he is her other half.

10. When I first started asking Lily out, it was entirely to annoy Snape. It wasn't until after she yelled at me during the O.W.L. incident that I realized how much I had come to like her.


	2. Lily Potter

Lily Potter

1. I always knew what Snape was like. It wasn't exactly hard to spot with the way he treated Petunia from the very beginning. I pretended I didn't know because I loved talking about magic with him so much.

2. I always thought Mary MacDonald was half – well, no, not half, but - a quarter-responsible for what happened with the Slytherins. She could have fought back. I was mad at her too, for letting Muggleborns get a bad rap.

3. I would have said yes to James the first time he asked me out if he hadn't asked right in front of Snape.

4. Even so, I wanted to. That's when I started hating both of them, because they had to make me choose.

5. I never forgave any of the Marauders for making me be the one to say what we all suspected about Remus – because I knew what it was to lose a friend to the Dark. I don't think they ever forgave me for saying it, not really.

6. I was never entirely okay with the fact that Remus was a werewolf. I got the whole thing about it not being him and the man half being what mattered, but he never seemed to pay enough mind to the fact that the wolf part could still kill and was still real. However angsty he got, he took a hell of a lot of chances with everyone's lives.

7. I wanted a girl. I didn't want to have a boy at the same time as Petunia, where they would be set up in constant competition at family reunions. I knew how bad that could go oh so quickly.

8. I still liked to pretend that we could go to family reunions.

9. Snape's Darkness was terrible and frightening, but there was always something attractive about it as well – until he let it become ugly.

10. I'm the one that set off the stinkbomb that threw the whole wedding party into chaos during the photo session. The whole thing was getting just too perfect, which to a Marauder meant that something was about to go terribly wrong. So I headed them off at the pass, lest they do actual damage.


	3. Peter Pettigrew

Peter Pettigrew

1. I am not a coward.

2. I'm not afraid of spiders. I'll kill them or let them be at home, but in public…well, it just goes along so well with everyone thinking I'm a coward and that I only get my strength and bravery from trying to be like James and Sirius and Remus. That I got trapped hiding under Voldemort's robes.

3. Sometimes I think the hardest part about joining wasn't the betrayal involved but giving up my mother's old dream of the Order of Merlin. She always wanted it so badly, sometimes I thought it was the only way she'd ever really see me. Ironic.

4. However convenient it is, I'm still insulted that they would think me a coward.

5. I can keep a secret.

6. That's why, to this day, Sirius thinks Regulus Confunded him from behind the stands during his Quidditch tryout. It wasn't. I didn't want to be the only Marauder without either Quidditch practice or prefect meetings on Thursday nights.

7. Dumbledore offered me the prefect badge originally. I wouldn't take it – I didn't think my role in the Marauders could survive being the killjoy.

8. I know everyone's all "Lily and James are so _perfect!_" but I kind of don't see it. I mean, she's mouthy and funny but knows where to draw the line. How's James ever going to learn that there _is_ one with a girl who's always flirting with it? He needs someone to draw it for him.

9. It was a week before I showed the others my Animagus form. I thought they wouldn't appreciate the size and species.

10. It was my idea to become Animagi, but I didn't think the others would take it coming from me. I could always play Sirius like a fiddle.


	4. Sirius Black

Sirius Black

1. Andromeda only became my favorite cousin later. When we were kids she was way too laid back and pacifistic to be as much fun as Bella.

2. I was always a little relieved about the flubbed Quidditch try-outs - not least because Regulus cared enough to Confund me to avoid playing against me.

3. I didn't think that Peter would keep the Potters' secret under torture if the switch were found out. I didn't know if I could keep it under torture either. I didn't ever want to find out, and since I knew Remus would swear up and down that it was me…I was right about that at least.

4. I think I did go mad in Azkaban.

5. I have never been drunk. Oh, I've acted drunk. It's a family tradition - those Blacks always saw the advantage of being the alert ones in a room of dulled wits.

6. The hardest part about being back at Grimmauld Place was how easily it started to feel like home again. I hated it when it was my home…but there's something about the house you grow up in that never leaves you.

7. It wasn't Snape I told about the knot on the Whomping Willow. I saved Regulus from a furious blow to the head then cursed him to be unable to go near it again. I can't believe he used Snape to explore for him. Clever bugger.

8. Harry didn't fly as well as his father. He might have in time, but you really couldn't match James - he lived for that game and Lily's smiles.

9. I drove off every one of Lily's friends. That part's not secret. But I didn't even think most of them were the traitor, that part is. I just couldn't let it to be one of the guys, couldn't let it be Remus. But I knew it was long before I drove the last one off. It kills me now that Harry doesn't have anyone to tell him about his mother.

10. I told Dora that Remus liked her but was too shy to make a move one day. More because I was bored than because I thought they'd actually make a go of it.


	5. Remus Lupin

Remus Lupin

1. The Map wasn't confiscated while we were at Hogwarts. Suspecting that Sirius and James would tear it to pieces fighting over it, I pretended Filch caught me and smuggled it to a promising first year. Apparently I should have gone for a more experienced prankster, because I'm told it ended up in Filch's possession all the same.

2. I'm the one who hung Peter's pants from the Goal Hoops the night before the big match. Luckily, Sirius was too drunk to be able to deny that he did it himself as they all assumed.

3. I wasn't entire sure I wouldn't attack my friends even in their Animagus forms.

4. I once walked in on Snape, having apparently bullied Lily into an empty classroom, begging her to take him back. We both thought James didn't need to know.

5. I kept at least a piece of my mind the night that Peter escaped. I would never have hurt Harry. I was going for the Rat when Sirius got in the way.

6. I had seen the name Sirius Black on the Marauders' Map once before that fateful night in the Whomping Willow. I told no one, I simply went into the Forest where I had seen him. I wanted to kill him myself. I think I nearly did.

7. I had decided to leave Dora before I found out she was pregnant.

8. I didn't take the Wolfsbane Potion with me when I ran away. I barely made it to a secured space in time to avoid the risk of hurting anyone.

9. I was never going to tell Harry how closely I'd known his parents. I couldn't handle it - the thought of stepping into James and Lily's shoes. I always knew I should never be put in charge of a child.

10. I used five Unforgivables at the Battle of Hogwarts before I even saw Dora fall.


	6. Severus Snape

Severus Snape

1. Sugar does not make Wolfsbane Potion worthless.

2. I would occasionally drop extra ingredients into Lily's potions - to correct her rare mistakes.

3. I was stalling outside my office to allow the Weasley girl to escape with the damn sword when Alecto Carrow came in to see me. So I had to get all melodramatic to deliver it.

4. I thought, even for Potter, there was no way the doe Patronus gambit would work.

5. I told the Dark Lord where Regulus Black was when he ran away. I had had him watched, convinced he might be working with his brother. They had, after all, once conspired to kill me even after their excessively public falling out.

6. It wasn't until the night of Black's escape from Hogwarts that I knew Potter's Patronus was a stag. At least his son didn't take after his mother. That would have been unbearable.

7. The Killing Curse that hit Albus Dumbledore was the first Unforgivable I ever cast.

8. But it was not the first time I killed someone.

9. I did not think the Dark Lord would take me back on the night of the Triwizard Tournament. I thought I would die and not have to endure another war, another round of spies and worthless people to protect.

10. When I thought Petunia was hanging around, I intentionally told the worst stories I could think of so that she would leave us alone.


	7. Petunia Dursley

**Petunia Dursley**

1. I would have served as the Potters Secret Keeper if Lily had asked me without James there. I can't quite explain what made it different that James Potter was there, but he was always too cavalier about everything. Let someone else break his inevitable fall. Lily could have made me see this time was different, I'm sure. She nearly did anyway.

2. I use store-bought crusts.

3. The letter Lily found from me to Dumbledore before she went to Hogwarts was the second. The first one asked him not to bring Lily into that awful sounding world. It was because I was jealous.

4. The fact that Dudley somehow learned not to hate Harry was the surprise and the triumph of my life, but it was also the reason that I did everything. I hated Lily. I didn't want him to know fraternal love that twisted into hate, so I gave him hate for him to turn into unexpected love.

5. I didn't say anything the first few times I saw Lily fly when she got off the swing. I thought I was going crazy and I was afraid to admit I was seeing things.

6. After I realized what was going on, I once spent an afternoon trying to do the same. When I fell on my face in the dirt, _hard_, I started crying and gave up.

7. The milkman was always cheeky because he was trying to seduce me. I admit, after years of marriage, I was flattered by his attention. I encouraged the flirting but never did anything about it.

8. At the end of the second wizarding war, we didn't return to our old lives with our old names. It was because I was afraid of facing Harry again and preferred to be where he wouldn't be able to find us.

9. The last concession I demanded of Dumbledore, in order to agree to take Harry into my home, was that Dudley never be offered a place at Hogwarts. I lived in terror of one of his rages showing the accidental magic so abundant in Harry.

10. One tantrum did when he was three. I told Vernon it was Harry, and that's when we decided to move him to the cupboard under the stairs.


	8. Vernon Dursley

Vernon Dursley

1. I really hate Marge's dogs.

2. I do know, you know, that Petunia never would have settled for me if her sister hadn't been such a stuck-up freak when she first brought me home. I could see it in her eyes, could feel it in how she grasped my hand tighter than more her sister pursed her lips.

3. I wouldn't buy the drills that factory made to poke holes in a magic carpet.

4. I think, from a purely objective standpoint, not that it makes up for the rest of it, that Lily is the prettier sister.

5. I did notice how rotund my son was getting. I kept telling myself that anyone would look fat next to the walking stick that was _that boy_, but I knew he was getting unhealthy. I didn't want Dudley to ever start thinking he wanted to be more like Harry in any way.

6. Apparently I ate my twin in the womb.

7. The reason I was so determined about the damn letters was that I was afraid one of them would be addressed to Dudley.

8. If one had been, I would have let both boys see them.

9. I'm pretty sure that sniveling Piers kids is a sociopath. The one good thing about our relocation was getting Dudley the hell away from him.

10. Petunia never asked if I was willing to take Harry in. I didn't question it - I was afraid of what would happen if I tried to stop her. I was pretty sure she would leave me without a second thought.


	9. Hermione GrangerWeasley

Hermione Granger-Weasley

1. I sometimes wondered, especially when I was the one holding the locket horcrux, what my life would have been like if I hadn't been attacked by a troll when I was eleven years old. That is, after all, the only reason Ron and Harry became my friends.

2. I thought seriously about not going back to get my parents from Australia. How was I supposed to tell them what I had done?

3. One day at the Ministry I was taken aside and told how elves became enslaved and why. I stepped down as head of S.P.E.W. I still believed in the cause but…I couldn't lead it with that knowledge in my head.

4. I was hoping that Ginny would get over Harry. It was always so tedious when he and Ron fought, which seemed the inevitable result, and, honestly, I always thought he should find some nice Muggle girl who had no idea he was a big deal.

5. Or Luna Lovegood.

6. I think I might have - would have - gone with Ron when he left Harry's quest if he had asked when I was wearing the horcrux…perhaps even if he had just asked more nicely.

7. I'm the one who came up with "Won-Won" as Lavender's nickname for Ron. I referred to him by it in the dorm room one evening in front of her. Serves him right.

8. I was never okay with Scorpius and Rose's friendship. When she was coming of dating age, I decided it was time to tell her about what happened to me in the Malfoy Manor. I told myself I just wanted her to know, that it was time - but the truth is that I wanted her to turn down Scorpius' invitation to visit over the summer. I couldn't take her going there. I don't think the poor boy ever knew why she stopped writing to him.

9. Under torture in that house, I told them we had gotten the sword from Ginny. I don't know if they believed me or if Ginny had to flee Hogwarts for another reason, but it was the only thing I could think of to answer their questions.

10. The moment I knew Ron liked me was when I saw the look on his face when Dumbledore explained why we had been called to his office the night before the Second Task. The Yule Ball might have meant nothing, after all, besides what it said on the tin. I didn't know I liked him until that moment either.


	10. Ron Weasley

Ron Weasley

1. When I got the prefect badge, I thought for just a moment: what if the Mirror of Erised _was_ telling the future? I mean, I had had it explained to me, but I could never let go of that image any more than Harry did the image of him standing with his family. That's what gave me the courage to try out for the Quidditch team - after all, hadn't I been captain in the Mirror? If I could be prefect, after all…

2. I barely hid my utter panic the first time Hermione approached the unicorns in Care of Magical Creatures. She and Krum - their relationship didn't seem - like it had - anywhere _near_ that far but - well…still.

3. I couldn't believe my parents helped me fake an illness so that I could run off with Harry. I think, somewhere deep down, I was hoping that they would stop me. Or at least insist we bring someone who knew what they were doing.

4. I never had trouble telling Fred and George apart…but I wish I had. I wish I couldn't tell one from the other. Sometimes, I could see that Mum half thought she had Fred back, even just for a moment.

5. I always wondered if Harry and Hermione held it against me - how I was always the reason for a big falling out. It was only the last time that I was the one who ended up alone, but I was always the one who initiated the split. I always wondered if they ever completely trusted me again after the last one. Especially since it was something of a pattern.

6. While Harry was in the Chamber of Secrets, I invented an elaborate backstory for the Obliviated Lockhart, partly to keep him relatively quite and partly to distract myself from the fact that my sister was dead or dying not far away. When we visited my father in St. Mungo's, I overheard a nurse talking about one of Lockhart's most persistent delusions of "wrestling a camel" and nearly laughed aloud. Not that I guess it was all that funny.

7. I performed a series of tests on Pigwidgeon, just to make sure. After Scabbers. I'm kind of convinced that I permanently addled his brains in the process.

8. I think the reason I thought of the house elves during the Battle of Hogwarts was because it was Dobby that made us able to save Hermione in Malfoy Manor. She'd like it to have been a broader recognition of their worth, but well, there it is.

9. When I found out Rose and Scorpius were friends, I asked Harry to have Kreacher shadow them. After a couple months of his reports, I was actually kind of okay with it.

10. I realize a lot of other things were going on at the time, but I remember being really pissed at Harry during the Second Task when Hermione and I were told that we were there to be the "thing a Champion would miss most" and she had to realize that she apparently meant more to Viktor Krum, whom she'd just met, than she did to one of her best friends - whom she'd been supporting all year while I was acting like a tool.


	11. Ginny Potter

Ginny Potter

1. I don't hate Fleur. Okay, well, yes, I do. But not for the reason everyone thinks. And think things they do. I don't hate the French, and I have a girly side myself, thank you very much. I swear, I can't believe the number of people who sincerely think I hate her all these years later just because she kissed Harry once at the Triwizard Tournament. It was because of that year though. I held them in such contempt – the boys who trailed after her, whom she made look so ridiculous. I hated that she made my favorite brother into just another one of that stupid gaggle dogging at her heels. Whether she loved him back or not.

2. I still prefer playing Chaser, but, having actually played Seeker, I could never quite believe that the Chaser position really mattered to the outcome of the game anymore. Sure, people cite things like Ireland winning the World Cup without the Snitch and all of the League tournament rankings are based on the total points scored…but it's a really damn frustrating thing about Quidditch. On the bright side, that's probably half the reason I was known as one of the best sports in professional Quidditch.

3. I was always a little mad that my mum got to finish off Bellatrix.

4. When I was young, Percy asked me if I would team up with him to try and get back at the twins, who were always ganging up on him. I still wonder if everything would have been different if I hadn't just put a toadstool in his cereal in an attempt to impress them.

5. But then, deep down, I know that's a cop-out. I don't think anything would have made me take sides against Fred and George at that age. Perhaps at any age.

6. Sometimes, during that long year at Hogwarts under Snape, I couldn't help comparing my defunct relationship with Harry to the one I had with Neville. Harry and I work well as a married couple in peacetime, but he was never willing to let me take an equal share of the danger, of the effort of fighting, as Neville did.

7. I didn't want to name our first daughter Lily. I fought pretty hard to honor Harry's mother by naming our first son Evan instead, but I knew I'd lost the battle at James Sirius.

8. And I actually suggested Albus Severus. Even Harry's forgotten it wasn't his idea.

9. I'm pretty sure I killed MacNair at the Battle of Hogwarts.

10. I still miss Tom sometimes.


End file.
